VFI suspends 10 members for unconstitutional meeting

Volleyball Federation of India (VFI) president Chaudhary Avdhesh Kumar on Friday suspended 10 officials including chief executive officer (CEO) K. Murugan, executive vice-president (EVP) Rajkumar and treasurer Ranjit Roy Chaudhary along with seven other state unit affiliate members.

These members are accused of attending an invalid core committee meeting that was called by Rajkumar here on February 22. The meeting was declared unconstitutional as it was not called by the secretary general or the president or by any VFI member who had given prior notice for such a meet in accordance with the VFI constitution.

Further, Chaudhary had also dissolved the VFI core committee on February 20 and disallowed any such meeting.

Since a few VFI officials and state representatives still went ahead to meet in the national capital and later released some information regarding the Indian Volleyball League (IVL) without the permission of the president or the executive committee, their actions were found to be unconstitutional and against the spirit of Indian volleyball at large. All decisions taken in the meeting were declared null and void.

The suspended members are also accused of attempting to sabotage the IV League logo release ceremony that was conducted by the president in the presence of other VFI officials on February 24 here.

To give the suspended members a fair chance, Chaudhary has constituted a five-member disciplinary committee and called an emergent executive committee meeting in Nagpur on March 3. The suspended members are expected to file their written replies to the disciplinary committee by March 2. The committee will then submit a report to the emergent executive committee with the recommendations.

Chaudhary followed the due procedure laid out in the VFI constitution to approve the proposal from a reputed sports marketing firm before launching the IV League logo. The sports marketing firm gave a presentation to him in the presence of CEO, EVP, and secretary general in a meeting held in Bengaluru on January 2.

The VFI then assessed the proposal for a few weeks and then gave it a green signal.

"I have always worked according to the constitution of VFI. The primary objective of my actions as the president is to uplift the status of volleyball in India, protect interest of current and ex-players, officials, state units. In the last three years the status of Indian volleyball has improved and the governance of VFI has become more player centric," Chaudhary said.

"Apparently, a section of the federation does not like this transparent shift and hence they want to create confusion. I am very clear that if anybody comes in the way to improve the financial status of players, state units and federation, a very strong action as per the constitution shall be taken against him/her."

The president added that although he has given the suspended members a fair chance to dispose off in front of the committee, any activity to sabotage the integrity of VFI will not be tolerated in the future.